Average hourly earnings grew 0.1% from January, hitting below economist projections of 0.2% and even lower than January's 0.3% rise. While wage growth rose by 2.6%, that is slightly slower than January's 2.9% increase. "This will not be lost among a FOMC that leans hawkish in 2018 and points towards an increasing probability that the central bank will hike rates four times this year".

Construction employment was estimated to increase by 34.4 hours, after slipping to 34.3 hours in January.

Fed officials are holding a key policy-setting session later this month to evaluate growth, employment and inflation. But those gains would be more than offset, Trade Partnership calculates, by sharp job losses among companies that use the metals, such as automakers, packaged food companies and those that make industrial machinery.

The latest report marks the 89th consecutive month of job growth, a trend that began in late 2010, as the economy began to pick up steam in the wake of the worst downturn since the Great Depression. US employers added 313,000 jobs in February, far surpassing expectations for an increase of 200,000 jobs after January's better-than-expected reading.

Strong hiring is drawing people into the US labor market, a healthy mix that suggests the economy can run strong without overheating and forcing the Federal Reserve to curb growth with aggressive interest-rate increases.

However, the unemployment rate remained at 4.1%, while the annual earnings growth rate slowed to 2.6% last month.

The US labour market continued to strengthen in February, but wage pressures eased.

It turns out that this is due to the way the jobs numbers are gathered and how the days of the week fell this year during a short month.

The labor-force participation rate also jumped, by the most in over eight years, showing that many working-age Americans are still out of the labor market. Donald Trump bragged about a sharp decline in this measure during his State of the Union address in January, only to see it tick back up again.